Windows Phone 8 Tip: Understand Your PC Sync Options

It used to be so simple: When it came to syncing your Windows Phone 7.x handset to the PC, you used the Zune PC software, love it or hate it. With Windows Phone 8, however, Zune is out of the picture. And while your PC sync options have in many ways expanded, they’ve conversely gotten less integrated. This is, believe it or not, by design, as Windows Phone 8 is really designed to be more of a standalone system than its predecessor.

To recap, here’s how it worked in Windows Phone 7.x: You could connect your handset to the PC via USB (or, optionally, via Wi-Fi) in order to sync music (and ringtones), videos, pictures, podcasts, and, when available, software updates to the device. You could also sync content back to the PC from the phone, including photos taken with the device’s camera, pictures downloaded to the device’s storage from the web, and songs downloaded or purchased over-the-air through Zune Marketplace/Zune Music Pass on the device.

The Zune connection was the only way to get full-sized, full-resolution photos off of the phone: While Windows Phone 7.x did support auto-sync of photos to the SkyDrive cloud, these photos were downsized first and were not full fidelity. The Zune connection was also the only way to get purchased TV shows and movies, or rented movies, onto Windows Phone 7.x: You had to do this from the PC, as Windows Phone 7.x did not support over-the-air access to this content.

In Windows Phone 8, the Zune PC software is no longer an option, at least not explicitly/directly: You cannot sync your phone with this software at all, and neither recognizes the other. (If you’re a fan of Zune, you can of course continue to manage your PC-based music collection with this software. It still works with the now-renamed Xbox Music Pass, and you can sync content to your Windows Phone 8 handset using one or more of the methods described below.)

Here are your PC sync options for Windows Phone 8, the solutions you can use to get content to and from your handset using different Windows versions (Windows 7, 8, and RT, mostly, but probably XP and Vista too).

Windows Phone app

The Metro-style Windows Phone app, available for free from the Windows Store, lets you sync content (photos, music, videos) to and from your phone, automatically or manually. It’s pretty basic, compared to Zune, but even compared to the desktop application (noted below), it’s lacking some key features like support for music playlists. This is by design: Windows Phone 8 is designed to be used largely PC-free.

Windows Phone desktop application

Works with: Windows 8 and 7

The Windows Phone desktop application, currently in beta, works much like the Metro-style app, but it actually provides additional functionality when compared to the Metro app. You can sync content between Windows Media Player/Zune or iTunes collections, which is helpful for those who use iTunes, in particular. (I wrote about this latter functionality in Windows Phone 8 Tip: Enjoy Podcasts on the Go.) And it works explicitly with both ringtones and podcasts.

File Explorer: Drag and drop

Works with: Windows 8, 7, RT, and probably Vista and XP

Windows Phone 8 finally support direct access via File Explorer in Windows 8 or RT (or Windows Explorer in older OSes), letting you drag and drop content to and from the device as you would with any USB-based hard drive or memory stick.

Photos: Windows Photo Gallery

Works with: Windows 8 and 7

While you are free to use the Windows Phone app or desktop application to automatically copy photos (and other pictures) from the device to the PC, this functionality is very limited: You can’t rename the files on import or create event-based folder structures. Instead, everything is dumped in a folder called From Paul's HTC 8X (or similar) and the photos, all in one folder, have terrible names like WP_20121029_001.jpg.

Fortunately, there’s a better way, which you can use in tandem with Windows Phone app or application. That is, Windows Phone 8 handsets now show up as normal cameras to photo editing apps in Windows. So you can use Windows Photo Gallery, or your application of choice, to import your phone-based photos. I wrote about this in Windows Phone 8 Tip: Import Photos to Your PC.

Broken: Xbox Video-based TV shows and movies

Not everything with Windows Phone 8 is perfect. As I discovered yesterday, and wrote about in Windows Phone 8 Does Not (Currently) Support Xbox Video, Microsoft has silently and inexplicably dropped support for Xbox Video-based TV shows and movies, a feature that still works fine with Windows Phone 7.x handsets (via Zune). Microsoft has declined to comment further, but I’m hoping this support will be (re-) added in the future.

Discuss this Article 16

I wonder if the fact that Windows Phone 8 has closer underpinnings to Windows 8 and RT that feature/functional updates to the platform will (a) be more frequent, (b) be easier to code and implement and (c) evolve the platform more rapidly than was possible with the previous Windows CE-based core.

I would like to imagine this platform has some mileage in it. Perhaps coming hardware generations will be upgradeable to Windows Phone 9 (or whatever next is potentially on the drawing board at Redmond).

In a recent article you bemoaned the "...rare example of where we had functionality in the previous version of a Microsoft product and lost it." This is in fact Microsoft's strategy in recent years. I used to be able to use "Plays for Sure" content on mobile devices. I used to be able to sync my phone directly to Outlook. I used to be able to curate my photo, video, music, and podcasts in one location.
In fact, Microsoft's motto should be, "You can't do that anymore."
This is not a new, innovative Microsoft, but rather the old monopolistic behemoth trying to push its users into cloud-based and other services requiring monthly payments. I know that you have been enthusiastic about many of these changes, but this is by no means a universal sentiment.

From a Windows 7 computer, apparently you can use Windows Media Player to sync to a Windows Phone 8 (in this case, a Nokia 820). This seems to work better than the Windows Phone desktop app. Am I missing something? When upgrading to a new Windows Phone 8 from a Windows Phone 7.5, is there an "easy" way to do it that preserves the music previously on the Windows Phone 7.5 device or do you just have to start all over?

How the hell is the average person supposed to deal with all this crap? Microsoft have made some great strides recently in integration but they need to meet or exceed the competition. This isn't 2007 anymore.

You said: "This is by design: Windows Phone 8 is designed to be used largely PC-free."

Why? What benefit is there? The Cloud is great IN ADDITION to the standard way of doing things and for some things like OTA software updates is a material improvement. But it's not a magic bullet that can replace everything. First, media is BIG and I don't have the cloud storage, data plan or bandwidth to stream all of my content through the cloud. Second, for a lot of things like managing playlists and libraries or viewing and editing photos/videos you need them locally on your PC.

Plugging in and manually dragging content to my device from a host of applications is a major pain point. And it's a pain point that didn't exist on WP7.

I agree with many expressing their frustration here and echo the "you can't do that anymore" sentiment.
The Zune software was amazing. I have used it since I got my 120 GB Zune and recommended it to others as a good replacement for garbage such as iTunes, when just trying to organize music collections.
The 4.8 Zune software works great and I don't for the life of my know why Microsoft would abandon such a product. What reason does this serve? Incompatibility? Doubt it... its software, you can make anything work if you want to. Rebrand the gd thing from Pink/Orange and "Zune" to Green/Yellow and "Xbox" and "Windows Phone" or something. And use it as the basis upon which the "modern" app follows.
I'm getting sick and tired of dealing with new products that do a half-arsed, 50% job of what the previous product once did, that we are being forced to give up.
Another example is Windows Live Mesh/Sync.... we're still waiting on many features to be moved to SkyDrive that we were left w/o. Thank god I still have Mesh installed (despite Essentials 2012 sneakily trying to get rid of it).
I won't even get started on Win8 and some of its quirks, which I run daily on my work PC.

Add me to the list of people completely disappointed at the subpar options that exist for syncing my Lumia 920 to my PC. No WiFi sync and the broken Xbox videos issues are probably top of my list of biggest flaws. I loved the Zune software, it worked perfectly and I just don't understand why MS abandoned it and did not give us any decent alternative. The file transfer and photo import options are welcome improvements, but the 2 things I mentioned up top are what are most frustrating.

Thank goodness those of us who comment can follow and understand this myriad of options. How is a 'civilian' user, even someone coming from iPhone, supposed to process all of this?

This is the first bit of information about the new WP8 OS that has me seriously reconsidering getting one. One of the best features of the WP7 experience is the excellent Zune software. Everyday I come home, plug my phone into my computer, and let it charge and sync. New podcasts are automatically downloaded. If I bought a new CD, I rip it and it syncs. I can use the "heart" buttons on each song to designate favorite songs. And all of this within the Zune software.

I don't want to manage my music and podcasts from my phone. I don't want to copy files to the SD card. The Windows Phone app and desktop software both seem like they mirror some aspects of the Zune software, so maybe one of those will get the job done? And if they are moving away from Zune, why not bring WP7 users into this new WP software? It's getting too convoluted.

I am still interested in the new phones, but I am much more likely to hold on to my WP7 for awhile until things get sorted out.

If someone needs a great Outlook sync, there is Akruto Sync, which enables a 2-way direct sync between windows phone and Outlook without using public cloud. It will sync calendar, tasks and contacts. I found out about them accidentally through forums and very pleased. No size limit, everything is synced including pictures. Also, all my old calendar entries got synced.

This is frustrating, why in the world wouldn't they have simply rebranded the zune software to xbox music and continued using it for syncing music, photos and other media. It's like they're clueless, or careless about customer care. Becuase they care little about the inconvenience this cause, I'm forced to have more than one piece of software installed on my machine that does the same thing!

Paul, nice article.
Just a basic question on a scenario: new device (WP8, 8Mpx camera) and tons of pictures on PC taken with another WP7 phone (still 8Mpx camera), which I would like to put back into the new device.

I wonder if it is possible to put them into the camera roll album (where normally WP8 phones store all the pictures taken with the camera) and keep that unique folder syncronized.

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